Most of the time, when people visit Asheville and come into my studio to browse the artwork, they either like it or they don’t. If they don’t like it, they leave. If they like it and if the price fits their budget, they make a purchase. Of that group of interested people though, are people who like to play the “what’s your best price?” game. Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE that game. I love talking someone down in price. It’s part of the fun of going to a garage sale. But…other than buying a house or a car, people don’t EVER try to bargain their way to a lower price with what they buy. I mean, imagine you’re at Walmart or Kohl’s or Home Depot and EverGreen Garden Center and you go up to the cashier, they inform you your total is $60.54. Is your response, “Okay, would you take $40?”
“The way I was taught to price my artwork makes the most sense…”
But there are people who buy artwork that way. I even had a gentleman visiting my Asheville art studio a couple years ago and he was looking at a painting and hollered across the room “well, you don’t seem to want to sell THIS one very much!” That was his way of asking if I’d come down in the price.
The way I was taught to price my artwork makes the most sense, and I wish everyone understood that I never price anything on a whim….”Oh, this one is awesome…I’ll price that high. This one…this is just okay, so I’ll price that lower.” If something is just “okay” I don’t put it on my wall. I remove the canvas from the frame and start all over. What ends up on my wall represents the best I can produce. I think everyone visiting my studio in the River Arts District deserves that. The only thing that determines my price is the rate of my sales. This year, I’m charging $3/square inch for my work. When I started selling my art, I was at $2.50/square inch. That was fine for a while, but when my artwork was selling faster than I could replace it on the wall, I bumped the price to $2.65. Then a year later, I had to bump it again, and then again. My goal is to paint as fast as I sell them.
All that said, if someone purchases something really large, or wants multiple pieces, of course I’ll give them a break on the pricing. THAT is the only point things get subjective as far as pricing goes. But I want to say “thank you” for someone willing to invest that much in me and my craft, and the most logical way to do that is by giving that type of a client a price break.
Aside from that though, I never, ever set prices based on what I “think” it’s worth. Based on my sales, I know what it will sell for and that’s the price I write on the tag. This is really important for my clients as well. They need to know that the value of the art they purchase is based on something more than what I “felt” like pricing it at. And so far, almost every year since I’ve started painting, the value (as set by purchases) is raising.
So setting prices is really a very simple and straightforward thing. If paintings sell too slow, you lower prices. If artwork sells too fast, you raise the price just a bit to slow sales down to a comfortable level. That’s how I was trained anyway, and it makes the most sense to me. If you have any questions or comments though, I’m really open to hearing.
